<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>You've Got a Friend in Me by DoreyG</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914737">You've Got a Friend in Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG'>DoreyG</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:22:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He hesitates for a second on the precipice, well aware that he’s a simple bard instead of anybody actually versed in physical feats of valour, and then sighs and girds himself to do what is necessary. He opens up the window, he leans through it to judge where exactly would be best to step on the roof, he picks the perfect spot and steps carefully out onto it… And proceeds to immediately stumble and almost fall over.</p><p>“Wilde!” Luckily for his neck, because the edge of the building was a great deal closer than he initially judged, his initial instincts as to where Sasha was were absolutely right. A firm hand snaps out, and grabs his arm just before he can tumble over entirely. “Are you <i>insane</i>? I don’t need you disappearing on me too!”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You've Got a Friend in Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/gifts">pendrecarc</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that no matter what else is happening in his life another pointless meeting is only five seconds away at any given time. Ever since Einstein returned to them, dragging Sasha and only Sasha in his wake, they’ve all been sequestered together in one room. Discussing exactly what happened, and what might have happened, and what could have happened and all permutations of such in between. He’s used to such meetings, generally enjoys such meetings in an admittedly rather petty way, but at present moment his head aches and he can’t help but be a little distracted. If anybody asks he’s perfectly happy to say that it’s just something he ate, but he knows the truth.</p><p>For the first hour or so of the meeting, far longer than expected, Sasha sat silently in a corner in somewhat of a daze and answered any questions put to her in monosyllables. But then, in one of the rare moments when they all glanced away from her at once, she vanished. And one of the main topics of conversation since then has been focused around where on earth she could’ve gone.</p><p>He knows exactly where she’s gone, but he doesn’t exactly feel like sharing it in a meeting chaired by Curie and with - to his practiced eye - very few actual ties to the LOLOMG group itself. He sits for another two hours of the meeting, increasingly bored as the arguments go round and round, and then escapes himself in one of the quick breathers. Climbs all the way up to the top of the building, until he’s standing in the very highest room and staring out at the full moon through the window. He hesitates for a second on the precipice, well aware that he’s a simple bard instead of anybody actually versed in physical feats of valor, and then sighs and girds himself to do what is necessary. He opens up the window,  leans through it to judge where exactly would be best to step on the roof, picks the perfect spot and steps carefully out onto it… And proceeds to immediately stumble and almost fall over.</p><p>“Wilde!” Luckily for his neck, because the edge of the building was a great deal closer than he initially judged, his initial instincts as to where Sasha was were absolutely right. A firm hand snaps out, and grabs his arm just before he can tumble over entirely. “Are you <i>insane</i>? I don’t need you disappearing on me too!”</p><p>“To be fair, I wouldn’t be disappearing in time, I would just be disappearing off a roof. The two are completely different scenarios,” he says, with as much dignity as he can muster in this situation, and scrambles up the roof with Sasha’s help until they’re both sitting above the window and neither of them are at risk of tumbling off the building. “One, for instance, is considerably more fatal than the other.”</p><p>“Yeah, so we <i>think</i>,” Sasha says, wearing a downright miserable expression, and lets go of him only when she’s sure that he’s settled. “Why are you even out here in the first place? I didn’t think you particularly liked roofs.”</p><p>“How dare you, roofs are my favourite piece of architecture,” he says mildly, and readjusts himself as best he can in his current position. It’s a good thing that he’s not particularly scared of heights, this building is a lot taller than it looks from the ground. “They were asking after you, in the meeting.”</p><p>“I’m not sure that I have anything of use to say, at the moment,” Sasha says, that misery still clear on her face. It’s not like she’s usually the sparkliest person that he’s ever met, often she has a grimness about her that he never expected to find in any way endearing, but she’s usually a great deal less defeated than this. “I’ve already told <i>you</i> everything that I know, and you can put it across a lot better than me. We went to rescue our friends and family, we maybe took a little too long doing so, we were all preparing to come back… And then everybody else was gone, and I was back in Rome by myself.”</p><p>It’s the most words she’s said in a row in all the time that he’s known her. He glances across at her for a long few moments, thoughtfully, and then lets out a long and heavy sigh. “Curie wanted to hear all of that from your lips, despite my attempts to explain. She wanted to see if anything had been missed, if she could tease a little more information out of your account.”</p><p>Sasha makes a face, one so vehement that he finds himself biting back a smile despite the situation. “Curie can-”</p><p>“I would recommend not finishing that sentence while she’s still in the area,” he interrupts her, repressing his natural amusement. Now isn’t the time for his usual flippant approach to life, as much as he wishes he could just bury his head in the sand and forget the world. “That’s not the only reason I came out here, though.”</p><p>Sasha casts him a sideways look, openly unimpressed. She’s never managed to be quite as judgemental as Grizzop or Zolf before him, but she certainly has her own refined level of scorn. “Not much in the mood for any more missions at the moment, Wilde.”</p><p>“That’s not what I was going for,” he says mock sternly, and is touched when Sasha’s lips twitch for just a moment. “How are you?”</p><p>A long moment of silence follows that question. It’s almost as if he’s asked Sasha how to travel in time, or what the weather is like in Japan at this time of year. She stares at him in open shock, seeming rather more taken aback by his concern than he honestly feels that she should be.</p><p>“Huh,” she manages eventually, just when he’s starting to give up hope.</p><p>“I know,” he says, and forces a wry smile. It’s not precisely that he’s hurt, if anything it’s rather encouraging that his aloof persona has worked so well even around the people he genuinely esteems, but he will admit to being just the faintest bit riled. “I’m rather confused that I can approximate human levels of concern too.”</p><p>“It’s not that I’m confused, it’s just… Huh.” Sasha stares at him for a long moment more, and then shakes her head. He’s genuinely not sure if she’s realized his reaction, and decides to be grateful for that at least. “How do you think I am?”</p><p>There are many things he could say to that, verging from mildly flippant to downright dismissive. He hesitates over all the options for a moment, trying to pick out the very best one, and is downright stunned when his tongue betrays him in the interim and decides to go for sincerity instead. “I think that you're probably doing about as well as I am, at present moment.”</p><p>Sasha keeps staring at him, and this time her expression changes just slightly as she watches him. It’s like she’s finally, despite her general lack of social awareness, glimpsing what state he’s currently in. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right. I just feel guilty, y’know? Like I should’ve done something more to help all of them, like I shouldn’t be the only one still- y’know, about and standing and doing stuff. I should’ve held on tighter, fought harder, gone back for them the moment I realised something was up. I shouldn’t be sitting here, absolutely fine, on a bloody rooftop while they're just <i>gone</i>.”</p><p>“I’m pretty sure you couldn’t have gone back for them,” he says, deliberately gentle this time. He’s never been very good at soothing, but if nobody else is around to assuage Sasha’s guilt then he’s determined to try. “I’m by no means an expert on the matter, but from what Curie said that particular type of magic doesn’t work that way.”</p><p>“I <i>know</i>, but-” Sasha gives a heavy sigh, buries her face in her hands for a long few moments. He’s seen her unsettled once or twice before, usually in life or death situations, but he doesn’t think that he’s ever seen her as defeated as she is now. “My best friends, the only friends that I really have, are currently trapped somewhere. Maybe in time, you know, but maybe somewhere <i>worse</i>. They could be lost forever, they could be dead, they could come back within two seconds and everything could be immediately fine and dandy again… Or not! I just don’t know anything, and I feel shitty about it.”</p><p>He shifts his hand to hover over her back for a long few seconds, and then hesitates and removes it. Neither of them are very comfortable with physical reassurance, and so he’ll have to use his words. Or at least try to use his words, in this situation. “Which is normal, and fair, and I think a perfectly reasonable reaction given the situation.”</p><p>Sasha lifts her head very slowly from her hands, fixes him with a surprisingly perceptive glance that he has to struggle not to writhe under. “I’m not the only one feeling it, am I?”</p><p>“This is probably an awful thing to say, so please forgive me for it in advance, but at least you were there,” he says, again before his brain can entirely engage and decide what the best way to put it would be. He’s stunned for a long moment, but soon decides to carry on. If he trusts anybody left in this world at the moment, after all, it’s Sasha. “I only found out what happened when Einstein arrived here with you in tow, yelling at the top of his lungs about how the others had vanished and neither of you knew where they were. It’s not exactly the greatest feeling in the world, to know that the best team that I’ve ever worked with have almost completely vanished under my watch. And it’s an even worse feeling to realize that I don’t know where they are, and that I can’t do anything about it, and that I failed at yet another thing that I was supposed to be able to do flawlessly.”</p><p>Sasha is staring at him with a strange look on her face. It takes him a long moment to realize that it’s compassion. “They were your friends too, weren’t they?”</p><p>“You all became so, along the way,” he admits, and realizes only after he’s said it that it’s the first time he’s admitted to genuine human fondness in as long as he can remember. “And now all of them but you are gone without a trace. And, as much as I do genuinely like you, I can’t help but miss the others and feel responsible for whatever happened to them.”</p><p>Sasha gives a small and crooked smile, one that makes his heart bleed a little with how painful it looks. “Guess everything kind of sucks at the moment, doesn’t it?”</p><p>He smiles reluctantly in return, forces himself to blink hard until the tears trying to prickle at the corners of his eyes reluctantly fade away. “It rather does.”</p><p>They stare out at the city stretched out before them for a long few moments together, both trying to gather themselves. It takes him a long few moments to realize that Sasha is actually leaning against him slightly, and when he does he’s absolutely stunned. The trust inherent there, the silent show of support from somebody who’s often just as bad as him at dealing with genuine emotions, means significantly more than he can put into words.</p><p>“...So,” Sasha is the first one to speak again, which is somewhat of a surprise but really shouldn’t be given his current discombobulated state. “What do we do now?”</p><p>He tilts his head back briefly from his view of the city to stare at the stars instead. They provide no actual answers, but they’re significantly more soothing to look at. “I must confess that I’m not entirely sure.”</p><p>“We can’t just give up,” Sasha says stridently, and for a moment she sounds just like Grizzop at his most stubborn. “Neither of us are built for that. We have to think of <i>something</i>.”</p><p>“No,” he says quietly, and reflects for just a moment on how glad he is that she’s here. He’s been alone for so very long, it feels so much nicer than he ever would’ve guessed to have a companion besides him. “The council, as led by the venerable Curie, will probably reconvene soon. But while I would not mind allying with them, pooling our resources as it were, I’m not sure that their interests entirely align with ours at the present moment.”</p><p>Sasha smiles a little again, just a small one but with a certain confidence that this entire situation is finally on its way to being fixed. “And what are our interests?”</p><p>“We still need to find the automaton, the one that you’ve been chasing since the beginning. We still need to discover whatever or whoever is blocking my magic, and work to get me back up to full strength. We still need to discover whatever is going on with the meritocrats, and see if it’s anything to be worried about or something that we should firmly keep our noses out of. And we still need to work out what else was happening with the creature you so charmingly called Mr. Ceiling, see if there are any lingering problems there that need to be worked out.” He looks down at her, sees her still firmly looking up at him and finally manages to summon up a smile. “But most importantly of all, I feel, we need to find out what happened to our friends and see if we can get them back.”</p><p>“<i>Yeah</i>!” Sasha says, and looks genuinely enthusiastic for the first time since he joined her on the roof. “So, where do we start?”</p><p>He turns his head back to the stars for a long few moments more, watches them silently as he gets his thoughts sorted out in his head. It feels more special than he ever would’ve expected, to be included in something like this for perhaps the first time ever. “I can do some research, and you can do some practical investigating on the ground. We’ll review our allies, reconvene with them, see if they know anything that we don’t. We’ll maybe even see if we can work with a few old friends, set up a new group to try and find the old.”</p><p>“You’re not talking about Brutor, are you?” Sasha asks suspiciously, and then takes one look at his amused face and goes wide eyed and gleeful. “You mean Zolf?”</p><p>“Yes. And quite frankly, Sasha, I am downright offended that you would think that my first option in this endeavour was a dog formerly owned by Bertie of all people,” he says, not even attempting to be genuinely withering, and slowly gets to his feet. He stands for a moment, pleased that he doesn’t immediately fall over, and then slowly extends his hand down to Sasha. “We’re not in a great position at the moment, I will admit, but at least we have each other. We can definitely work with that.”</p><p>Sasha hesitates for a moment, and then smiles at him again. She takes his hand, in a surprisingly gentle grip, and slowly allows herself to be helped to her feet. “Yeah, we can most definitely work with that.”</p><p>They smile at each other for a long moment, standing on the roof in the middle of a sleeping city with everything going wrong around them but the future somehow looking bright despite that. It feels strangely like a beginning, strangely like hope, and he’s happier with that than he ever thought it would be.</p><p>And then he really does fall over, and almost off the roof at that, but Sasha manages to catch him at the very last moment. It feels almost like a metaphor, but he finds that he doesn’t mind that nearly as much as he thought he would.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>